Altererythrobacter oceanensis sp. nov., isolated from the Western Pacific.

A Gram-stain negative, ovoid-rod shaped, strictly aerobic bacterium, strain Y2(T), was isolated from a deep-sea sediment of the Western Pacific. Phylogenetic and phenotypic properties of the organism indicated that it belongs to the genus Altererythrobacter. Strain Y2(T) shares highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 96.6 % with Erythrobacter jejuensis CNU001(T), followed by the type strains of recognized members of the genus Altererythrobacter (94.8-96.5 %). Strain Y2(T) forms a clade with E. jejuensis CNU001(T) in the cluster of species of the genus Altererythrobacter. Growth of strain Y2(T) was observed at 4-40 °C (optimum, 35-37 °C), at pH 6.0-10.0 (optimum, pH 7.0-8.0) and in the presence of 0-5 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 2-3 %). The major cellular fatty acids were found to be C17:1 ω6c (41.5 %), summed feature 8 (C18:1 ω7c and/or C18:1 ω6c; 17.2 %), C17:1 ω8c (11.0 %) and C15:0 2OH (8.1 %). The major respiratory quinone was determine to be ubiquinone 10 (Q-10). The polar lipid analysis indicated the presence of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, one sphingoglycolipid, three unidentified phospholipids, two unidentified glycolipids, two unidentified aminolipids and three unknown lipids. The DNA G + C content of the type strain is 60.0 mol %. On the basis of the data from the polyphasic characterization, strain Y2(T) represents a novel species, for which the name Altererythrobacter oceanensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Y2(T) (=CGMCC 1.12752(T) =LMG 28109(T)).

A mobile element based phylogeny of Old World monkeys.

SINEs (Short INterspersed Elements) are a class of non-autonomous mobile elements that are <500 bp in length and have no open reading frames. Individual SINE elements are essentially homoplasy free with known ancestral states, making them useful genetic systems for phylogenetic studies. Alu elements are the most successful SINE in primate genomes and have been utilized for resolving primate phylogenetic relationships and human population genetics. However, no Alu based phylogenetic analysis has yet been performed to resolve relationships among Old World monkeys. Using both a computational approach and polymerase chain reaction display methodology, we identified 285 new Alu insertions from sixteen Old World monkey taxa that were informative at various levels of catarrhine phylogeny. We have utilized these elements along with 12 previously reported loci to construct a phylogenetic tree of the selected taxa. Relationships among all major clades are in general agreement with other molecular and morphological data sets but have stronger statistical support.

Analysis of the human Alu Ya-lineage.

The Alu Ya-lineage is a group of related, short interspersed elements (SINEs) found in primates. This lineage includes subfamilies Ya1-Ya5, Ya5a2 and others. Some of these subfamilies are still actively mobilizing in the human genome. We have analyzed 2482 elements that reside in the human genome draft sequence and focused our analyses on the 2318 human autosomal Ya Alu elements. A total of 1470 autosomal loci were subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assays that allow analysis of individual Ya-lineage Alu elements. About 22% (313/1452) of the Ya-lineage Alu elements were polymorphic for the insertion presence on human autosomes. Less than 0.01% (5/1452) of the Ya-lineage loci analyzed displayed insertions in orthologous loci in non-human primate genomes. DNA sequence analysis of the orthologous inserts showed that the orthologous loci contained older pre-existing Y, Sc or Sq Alu subfamily elements that were the result of parallel forward insertions or involved in gene conversion events in the human lineage. This study is the largest analysis of a group of "young", evolutionarily related human subfamilies. The size, evolutionary age and variable allele insertion frequencies of several of these subfamilies makes members of the Ya-lineage useful tools for human population studies and primate phylogenetics.